UNS: Surfactant Herders for Containment and Remediation of Maritime Oil Spills

CBET -1512458 PI：Maldarelli，CharlesMaritime漏油会对海洋生物和沿海海岸线造成严重危害。 该项目的目标是开发可生物降解的表面活性剂，用于“化学放牧”，作为一种有效的漏油反应。 在这种遏制方法中，表面活性剂被空中喷洒到溢出物外面的未污染水中。 表面活性剂降低了空气-水的表面张力，这导致浮油层收缩和膨胀到可以通过燃烧或机械撇除来去除的程度。 研究人员将合成容易降解的表面活性剂放牧剂，并进行实验，以评估其在实验室模拟化学放牧中的表现。表面活性剂将使用天然存在的萜类化合物合成，所述萜类化合物具有作为疏水尾部的独特的单碳分支重复结构和与在聚集作用后水解的酯基连接的极性头部基团。 将测量放牧者降低的空气/水表面张力。 还将研究一种替代策略，其中表面活性剂用于降低油/水界面张力，导致油层回缩。 将在实验室实验中证明表面活性剂的聚集能力，并与目前使用的市售表面活性剂的性能进行比较。

CBET - 1512458PI: Maldarelli, CharlesMaritime oil spills can pose serious hazards to marine life and coastal shorelines. The goal of this project is to develop biodegradable surfactants for use in "chemical herding" as an effective oil spill response. In this method of containment, surfactants are sprayed aerially into uncontaminated water immediately outside the spill. The surfactants lower the air-water surface tension, which causes the floating oil layer to retract and thicken to the point that it can be removed by burning or mechanical skimming. The investigators will synthesize surfactant herders that are easily degraded and conduct experiments to evaluate their performance in laboratory simulations of chemical herding. Surfactants will be synthesized using naturally occurring terpenoids with a unique single carbon branch repeating structure as the hydrophobic tail and a polar head group attached with an ester group that hydrolyzes after the herding action. The air/water surface tension reduction by the herder will be measured. An alternative strategy in which the surfactant is used to lower the oil/water interfacial tension, leading to retraction of the oil layer, will also be investigated. The herding capabilities of the surfactants will be demonstrated in laboratory experiments and compared with the performance of commercially available surfactants currently in use.